The Prayer

I pray You'll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don't know

Let this be our prayer

When we lose our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with Your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

La luce che tu dai

I pray we'll find Your light

Nel cuore resterà

And hold it in our hearts

A ricordarci che

When stars go out each night

L'eterna stella sei

Nella mia preghiera

Let this be our prayer

Quanta fede c'è

When shadows fill our day

Lead us to a place

Guide us with Your grace

Give us faith so we'll be safe.

Sognamo un mundo senza più violenza

Un mundo di giustizia e di speranza

Ognuno dia la mano al suo vicino

Simbolo di pace e di fraternità

La forza che ci dia

We ask that life be kind

È el desiderio che

And watch us from above

Ognuno trovi amor

We hope each soul will find

Intorno e dentro a sè

Another soul to love

Let this be our prayer

Let this be our prayer

Just like every child

Just like every child

Need to find a place

Guide us with Your grace

Give us faith so we'll be safe

E la fede che

Hai acceso in noi

Sento che ci salverai.

Written by David Foster and Carol Bayer Sager

Sheer determination

"I am woman, hear me roar" is all well and good as a catch-phrase until you're stuck trying to move furniture and hefting a large mattress all by your lonesome. Suddenly it seems more appropriate to rephrase to "I am woman, hear me mew."

Hate to think how much more fun that would have been a few months back before I started hitting the gym more...

Storms

Thankful to be safe and sound with electricity and everything intact so far. Was stuck at work when the storm hit around 3 this afternoon, stuck in Wal-Mart on a code black when the supercell passed through around 6:30 tonight on a code black. My parents have two trees down in their yard near Hamilton Place, but thankfully no other damage. I'm currently hunkered down at a friend's house because their house is a little more sturdy than mine. Crazy, crazy weather.

Chasing the Wind

You win some, you lose some. You crash and burn. You trip and fall. The question is who is there to offer you a hand to get back up. Who gets down and helps you pick up the pieces and move on? The truth is that at the end of the day, when you tried your damnedest and you still came up short... welcome to life. The best we ever have is nothing but a series of tries, a lot of grit and determination, some tears and laughs along the way. You can sit down and plan it all out and micro-manage it to the nth degree. And you can still wind up with it all in 249 pieces in your lap, holding onto a broken shard and asking what the hell happened? There's nothing more calming than letting it all fly into the wind... realizing you don't have your stuff together and you never will entirely, and just living in the moment you are given now. Not to be reckless and wasteful, but to embrace each beautiful second with the knowledge that this, here and now, is all you really have right now. The knowledge that a bigger Power than you or me has it all in hand, and He knows exactly how the pieces fit together. Those days when nothing in life makes any sense at all, when you're pretty sure that your life was supposed to go differently than this... He's smiling at what you don't know, what you can't see yet.

Self-diagnosis

My heart is an unruly thing, forever in rebellion against my mind. Always seeking ways to leave me a tortured soul. It goes wandering around, looking for trouble, as if trouble wouldn't find it anyway. It is rarely ever still, only occasionally numb. But mostly it is a wildly beating thing, springing at the walls of its cage, wanting to burst forth and conquer the world. Alas, it is but a mortal organ with no miraculous powers of its own. It thinks it can overcome all obstacles, defy gravity and logic, and solve world hunger all in a single beat. It thinks it can love enough for two people so that it doesn't matter if it gets love back or not. It thinks it can take a fall of epic proportions and somehow put itself back together in some semblance of order. And even when it is lying bleeding and shattered on the ground, it still has faith. Stupid, blind faith. No sense of reason or recognition of facts. Just an unshakable faith that it can move mountains. It is a willful child, rarely listening to reason, only occasionally responding to discipline and consequences. But above all else, it is strong. For all its faults, it is the eternal optimist. When it seems all hope is gone, it keeps beating. It is the fighter inside of me, ready for the knockout punch, and just as ready to get back up and try again. Ever loyal to a fault, although foolish through and through, it holds out hope. And somehow it keeps going.

Places I have been...

I just counted them up and I've been to 34 U.S. states. I've also been to Canada, Mexico, and Haiti. Asterisks (*) are states I've actually lived in.

Alabama

Arkansas

Colorado*

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois*

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maryland

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee*

Texas

Utah

Virginia

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

So the 16 I haven't been to are:

Alaska

Arizona

California

Connecticut

Delaware

Hawaii

Maine

Massachusetts

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

North Dakota

Rhode Island

Vermont

Of mice and of men.... well actually, forget the mice.

So here I am on a Friday night, babysitting till 3a.m. The kids are in bed of course, so I have nothing but time to kill. I could fall asleep, but then I'll be groggy on the way home. I could watch a movie, but I'm completely bored with that idea. (True story.) I'm not complaining. I need the money for groceries this week, and the kids weren't difficult tonight. Getting paid for sitting on someone else's couch is not exactly a hardship.

I'm just blathering because I have nothing better to do.

I was texting about half a dozen people, but then they started dropping like flies and going to bed. Silly people. Who needs sleep anyway?

It has been raining on and off all day today. The baby woke up about an hour ago and I had to try to get her back to sleep. There's something very calming about settling into a couch with a one-year-old snuggled up with you, just listening to the rain outside. That was the peaceful moment I needed for the day.

Then true to form for me, I went and I got all riled up again over nothing. I've always said that all thoroughbreds are high-strung, but I'm starting to realize I take it to extremes at times. I have a brain that never shuts off (ever), an overactive imagination, and a lot of dumb ideas about how people should behave. Namely, I expect people to behave like me, and no one ever does. Human behavior is a complete enigma to me most of the time. I should have taken psychology in college. Then possibly it would make more sense to me.

"The Quitter" by Robert Service

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight --
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.